THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 195, September 19, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
BIOTECHNOLOGY: TO SURVIVE THE MEGA-DROUGHTS
By Dennis T. Avery
BIOTECNOLOGY & AGRICULTURE: MORE HIGH-YIELD FARMING RESEARCH REQUIRED TO MEET REDOUBLED WORLD
FOOD NEEDS IN 2050 -- THE NEED FOR GENE MODIFICATION RESEARCH TO DEVELOP SALT-TOLERANT &
DROUGHT-TOLERANT FOOD CROPS TO ENABLE HUMANS TO SURVIVE THE EARTH'S FUTURE MEGA-DROUGHTS -- THE
IMPORTANCE OF
SALT-TOLERANT & DROUGHT-TOLERANT CEREAL CROPS IN A MASSIVE REGIONAL MEGA-DROUGHT -- FOUR EPIC ANCIENT
ASIAN MEGA-DROUGHTS THAT COLLAPSED CULTURES & STARVED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, JUST IN THE LAST ONE
THOUSAND YEARS -- TWELFTH-CENTURY MEGA-DROUGHTS THAT WIPED OUT CULTURES & PEOPLES IN NORTH AMERICA --
THE NEED TO REJECT THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT & OVERRULE ITS ILL-FOUNDED OBJECTIONS TO SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH & TECNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE AREA OF FOOD PRODUCTION, AS WELL AS IN OTHER AREAS OF OUR
ECONOMY
FULL STORY:
When, O Lord, will the public turn its back on the ill-founded “concerns” of the Green movement that misinformed us
about DDT, salmon extinction, deformed frogs, man-made global warming, and a host of other fake “calamities”? When
will we support more high-yield farming research to meet redoubled world food needs in 2050? Especially since the
alternative would be to plow down more wild species’ habitat to plant additional low-yield crops.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, just announced a new gene modification that
tells rice plants to store salt in their roots. That prevents the salt getting to the plants’ shoots, where it would damage
yields. Earlier, biotech scientists came up with salt-tolerant tomatoes, which store the salts in their leaves — again, no
damage to yields.
Salt is one of the massive problems in farming. Much of the “freshwater” in the world has high salt levels, so it can’t be
used for high-yield irrigation. Salts are meanwhile building up in much of the world’s irrigated cropland, because they
are carried, dissolved, in even the freshest irrigation water. This problem has plagued farmers for a least 4,000 years,
ever since crops have been encouraged by irrigation.
Plant engineers are already working to transfer the new salt-in-the-roots gene to wheat and barley. Other breeders are
seeking more drought tolerance genes, which we’ve never achieved through cross-breeding.
How important would salt-tolerant and drought-tolerant cereal crops be in a massive regional mega-drought? Ancient
tree rings tell us of four epic Asian mega-droughts that collapsed cultures and starved millions — just in the last
thousand years.
China suffered a horrific drought in 1638-1641, reported then as the worst in five centuries. The famed Ming dynasty
collapsed. This wasn’t the onset of a “little ice age.” We were already in the Little Ice Age. This was worse.
Another severe monsoon failure in 1756-1768 coincided with the collapses of kingdoms in today’s Vietnam, Myanmar
and Thailand, with political turmoil all the way to Siberia and western India. Fragmentary evidence indicates that the
droughts were interspersed with violent and devastating floods, as though the gods had gone crazy.
The East Indian Drought of 1790-1796 appears to have been worldwide, spreading hunger and civil unrest. In Europe,
the drought led to crop failures blamed for the French Revolution, while famines ravaged India.
The worst was the “Great Drought” of the Victorian era, from 1876-1878. The resulting famines reportedly killed 30
million people, most of them in India, China, and Indonesia. A similar drought-flood pattern, between the 1340s and the
1420s, had already collapsed the famed Khmer society that built the temples at Angkor Wat.
Droughts are the most dangerous aspect of the Modern Warming and were the worst climate danger of the previous
500 global warmings.
Recent tree ring studies in the U.S.A. reveal 12th-Century American mega-droughts that destroyed the Anasazi culture
in the American southwest and the Mississippian mound-builders cities in Illinois — simultaneously. Those droughts
extended clear to the Pacific Coast of California. Evidence indicates those droughts were produced by a cold phase of
the recently-discovered Pacific Decadal Oscillation colliding with a warm phase of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation.
The Asian monsoon failures are much broader, and their causes may be more complex. What we know for sure is that
human-emitted carbon dioxide played no role.
What we also know for sure is that the world will need drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant bio-crops in the not too distant
future.
RESOURCES:
“Australian Group Produces GM Rice”, Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 10, 2010
“Asia’s Most Devastating Droughts Reconstructed”, Science Daily, July 24, 2010.
Larry V. Benson et al., “Possible impacts of early-11th, middle-12th , and late-13th Century droughts on western Native
Americans and the Mississippian Cahokians,” in press for Quaternary Science Reviews, 2010.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable
Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years. Readers may write him at P.O. Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421 or
send email to him at cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity